


let the rain come down

by pendules



Series: project 6 [4]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1509992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted in August, 2008.</p>
    </blockquote>





	let the rain come down

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in August, 2008.

Xabi's even more polite around him. He figures that he, unwittingly, does this to everyone: makes everyone feel guilty that they aren't like him, that they aren't Kakà. He's not perfect, far from it (Xabi can see this), but he leaves a lasting impression that he doesn't have to be. He is enough. He is Kakà. As good as anyone can ever hope to be. (He makes people look deep inside themselves, just by his presence, and wonder if they are, indeed, worthy to be here, worthy to exist at all. And are they _enough_?)

It tells a lot about his confidence, however, the way he responses to him. A lesser man might be perturbed; one who thinks he is greater might be smug, nonchalant (a fake aura of security). But for the nonchalance he shows in the face of David Beckham (whom he likes, he does, but he is still not as strong as this—he needs, always, something _tangible_ to believe in), he makes up with his respect, his interest, in this man, his own age, but so different in so many ways.

 

Kakà sits in his car, and he's dressed all in black, hair to collar, shirt to belt, cuffs of pants to shoes, all blending in. Blends in to the night, and this - this isn't Kakà.

(Xabi remembers Stevie mentioning seeing him in the tunnel after that friendly, and nothing more, but the way he'd said his name alone—well, that he had remembered.)

They never did speak, after either of those two times, but there was a night, a day in Spain they had decided silently to not speak of, but that he'd always remember. Kakà's English is better, much better. He's learning very quickly, and this is the first thing Xabi mentions. Kakà, he figures, doesn't take it as a compliment.

He'd make a crack about Kakà stalking him (the circumstances were roughly the same as in the previous time—just this one: Kakà possessed no glow he could detect like gamma radiation, stopped only by thick sheets of lead; Xabi had not noticed him first—he'd simply sidled up as if he was there specifically to meet _him_ ) if he didn't look quite like _that_. But they don't speak now, and Xabi is, still, a practical man.

 

So, he says, "Would you like to go for a drive?"

"Yes."

 

They've been driving for fifteen minutes when the rains begin. There's a sudden look of alarm on Kakà's face, and he says, when it's at its maximum intensity, sheets of water rolling off the windscreen, enormous drops striking everywhere else like gunfire, "Stop."

Xabi's not even exasperated yet. (Never really was confused. He has the knowledge few others do, just from being with him no longer than two hours: why he's here, the question he's trying to answer—he's just waiting for an admittance. He had _known_ , of course, since Madrid.)

 

And he gets out. Into the rain. There is hardly a wind. Only insurmountable and infinite wet. He's soaked in an instant. Xabi can barely recognise his figure through the glass. But can see that his head is not raised to the heavens, but rather, bowed, (hair dripping water onto his face). As if, for the one and only time, there is nothing good above, nothing for him, nothing telling him that he, and this is enough.

 

Then the shower stops. 

 

All he can see now is Kakà, illuminated by the headlights, an artificial glow, only one thousandth of the natural (God-given) one, through the paths created by the still moving, squeaking windshield wipers. He turns them off.

 

Gets out. 

 

Kakà's leaning against the hood of the Porsche Cayenne. Xabi sits on the other side.

"I wanted to see." He continues, "What the appeal of this place was."

"It's different for everyone."

"I can't... Why did you leave?"

"I...don't know. But I've found a reason to stay. Here. Like _you_ found a reason."

_Like I lost that reason._

"Forever means nothing."

"Kakà wouldn't say that."

"I...am. Kakà."

"Yes. Yes, you are. You need to remember that. And remember your reason. Or find out what it is if you don't."

"You left. Once. You could again."

"What matters is now. Things change. In time."

"But people don't."

"They... aren't supposed to. But sometimes, we lose part of ourselves. Sometimes, we _gain_ a part."

Kakà doesn't say: _I lost_ all _of me._

"You believe in God."

"I do."

"Forever?"

"Yes."

Xabi thinks: _I believe in this place. It's what I love. You believe in what you love. (You believe that when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love. It thinks you are enough.) Always. And that's who you are. So you are who you are forever._

Kakà understands. (He believes, still, in his home, in his Andriy, the one he used to have.)


End file.
